Thursday, May 19, 2016

Sometimes
we encounter moments that completely redefine the way we look at adaptation
studies, irrespective of which theoretical standpoint we might embrace.Whether we favor a Piagetian view (relating
the self to the adaptation process); a text-based view; or a transmedial view;
there are times when we realize that each one of these approaches have their
shortcomings.

Such
was the case for me during the last week.I was fortunate enough to watch G. W. Pabst’s version of The Threepenny Opera (1931) on
television.Premiered in pre-Nazi
Germany only three years previously,the
film contained three of the cast who had been involved in the stage version.Evidently Brecht himself had been initially
involved in the film version, but Pabst eventually dispensed with his
services.The finished product contains
few of the original Brecht/ Weill songs, and some critics have noted that the
lush recreations of the London underworld detract attention away from the
musical’s political overtones.Nonetheless Pabst’s vision does not shy away from the satiric material,
with the actors (Rudolf Forster, Carola Neher, Fritz Rasp, and Lotte Lenya)
singing the lyrics in deliberately discordant tones direct to camera.They function as commentaries on the action,
especially the overriding emphasis on self-interest that dominates the
characters’ minds.Sometimes the story
seems slightly incoherent (we do not quite understand why Mackie Messer
(Forster) is eventually reprieved from a death-sentence by hanging), but the
film provides a valuable record of “Brechtian” drama as conceived during his
time.

Three
days later I watched the Berliner Ensemble perform the same work at İstanbul’s
Zorlu Center, directed by the American Robert Wilson.This time the group used the whole text with
all of the songs.Performed on a
cavern-like and largely bare stage, Wilson used a variety of visual effects
drawn from a cornucopia of traditions – commedia
dell’arte, Japanese Noh theater,
the circus, cabaret, the Theater of Cruelty, mime – to emphasize the play’s
political material.The effect was quite
stunning: a set comprised of a series of metal bars, horizontally and
vertically placed, could double up as Macheath’s lair, a prison, a courthouse,
or whatever venue was required.The
actors’ use of mime recalled how much Brecht was indebted to early silent film
in his drama.Most of the lines were
delivered at the front of the playing area direct to the audience, so as to
sustain a Verfremdungseffekt, or a sense
of alienation, preventing us from identifying with the characters in any
way.With a live orchestra performing
the songs, and displaying a remarkable versatility in the process, the entire
production not only challenged our concepts of what “drama” could encompass,
but forced us to concentrate on the importance of the words – whether delivered
in spoken or singing voices.

Some
of the packed house of 2,000 did not like what they saw.The first half lasted just over two hours
without a break; when the interval finally arrived, several playgoers walked,
complaining that they had been short-changed in their expectations from an
organization as prestigious as the Berliner Ensemble.I do not want to speculate too much on their
opinions, but I venture to suggest that these playgoers had expected something
more along the lines of a “well-made play,” with a beginning, middle and an
end, and a story they could become emotionally involved with.

Throughout
the evening, I felt exhausted, as if I had been blown away by an artistic
tornado.I could not judge whether I
“liked” or “disliked” what I saw; perhaps it did not matter.What I did understand, however, is how a
performance – whether live on stage or filmed – is a highly complex text
sending out a multiplicity of messages, both visual as verbal.As spectators, we not only have to make sense
of the sets and costumes, but we take into account the actors’ movements, the
director’s management of space, the music, facial expressions and the use of
silence.And all this on top of trying
to understand the words, stresses, intonations, verbal interactions, and so on
…

What
I am trying to say is that watching adaptations is difficult.Our judgments are
continually shaped and reshaped from moment to moment; in a revival like
Wilson’s Threepenny Opera this
process of development can become overwhelming, rendering us mentally
exhausted.I would venture to suggest
that such interpretive issues arise while watching every adaptation, irrespective of the medium for which it has been
conceived and/or performed.

I
began by making distinctions between three types of standpoint – the textual,
Piagetian and intermedial.My experience
of watching The Threepenny Opera
prompts me to conclude that all three
approaches play an intrinsic part in the experience of every adaptation.This is what renders them such complex texts
to decode and relate to our own experiences as audiences and/or critics.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Ever since I became associated with adaptation studies, I have always
been led to believe that ‘radical’ versions of a source-text are identified
with something positive. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) reinterprets
Shakespeare for a ‘young’ audience; Michael Winterbottom’s A Cock and Bull Story (2005) uses a film-within-a-film structure to
recapture the narrative flexibility of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy; while Luhrmann has another go at rethinking an
established classic with The Great Gatsby
(2013). A course at the
University of Minnesota devoted to “Teaching Film, Television, and Media” has a
module devoted to adaptation, where the description quotes Louis Giannett’s Understanding Movies (2002), wherein
adaptations are divided into a tripartite typology – literal, faithful, and
loose (“Different Modes of Adaptation”).

“Radical” adaptations are good.
They help viewers and critics to “rethink” texts by offering new
perspectives on familiar material. They
can expand the discourse of adaptation to encompass alternative modes of
thinking, visual styles and/or cinematic narrative. They invite us to re-examine our beliefs in
terms such as “fidelity,” or “originality,” and the value-judgements associated
with them. Hence it is hardly surprising
that “radical” filmmakers form the subjects for academic articles, books, and
other materials produced by colleagues willing to advance the discipline of
adaptation studies.

Yet it is frequently the case that “radicalism” is a critically
contested term, especially if used in a cross-cultural context. Peter Brook might have been considered
innovative in British terms with his version of Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade (1967), based on his stage
production of the same name, but the cinematic style is entirely in keeping
with the French-inspired tradition of the Theatre of Cruelty. Likewise Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby might not seem especially innovative to the
connoisseur of Hollywood musicals of the classical period; many of the
stylistic conventions owe a lot to Busby Berkeley’s and Vincente Minnelli’s
example.

In light of a recent documentary on the life and work of composer Peter
Maxwell Davies, recently broadcast on BBC Four in the United Kingdom, I was
prompted to deconstruct that term “radicalism” even further. In his early life as a composer and educator
at Cirencester Grammar School, Maxwell Davies was perceived as something of a “radical”
in his determination to question established conventions of musical appreciation. He embodied the spirit of the Sixties in
classical music, as he tossed aside notions of harmony that dated back to the
eighteenth century and set about retraining listeners to appreciate more
discordant forms. Within three decades,
however, Maxwell Davies had become an Establishment figure, whose work was
regularly performed at the Proms, and who was regularly featured on BBC
Television. In 2004 he became Master of
the Queen’s Music, the equivalent of the Poet Laureate.

His biography suggests that “radicalism” is a term identified with youth
(as opposed to age); freshness (as opposed to staleness); and
anti-establishment attitudes. Like John
Osborne in the theater, or Tony Richardson and Karel Reisz in British film
history, Maxwell Davies underwent a kind of psychological metamorphosis; as
they grew older they progressed inexorably towards membership of the
Establishment, while younger talents assumed the radical mantle instead –
Edward Bond, David Edgar (theater), and Ken Russell and Peter Greenaway (film).

While this is a very schematic mode of looking at media history, we are
nonetheless made well aware that “radicalism” is a slippery term; one that
might help career advancement during one’s early years but erodes over
time. Mid-career artists who retain that
soubriquet are described as “aging radicals,” as if gray hairs and increasing waistlines
should separate older from younger individuals.

Yet perhaps we should not dismiss the term so easily. The Maxwell Davies tribute program included
an archive interview with the composer where he suggested that the inspiration
for his so-called “radicalism” was not wholly provoked by the desire to
challenge established values, but by a need to “push the notes” in different
ways; to “get inside the music” and understand its ebb and flow. He was as interested in past musical
traditions as in contemporary music; he spent much of his life trying to
synthesize the two in new ways.

The metaphor of “pushing the notes” is a suggestive one, implying that
any creative artist – including adaptors and/or screenplay writers – should try
to inhabit their source-texts; to become involved in their nonverbal as well as
the verbal nuances and let their products be shaped by their instincts. “Radicalism” in this formulation means
discovering new ways of thinking and feeling, but not necessarily produced by
the desire to challenge established conventions. The past should not be rejected but embraced
as a means of understanding the future.

In this formulation every one of us – artists, audiences, critics alike –
are “radicals” insofar as we learn how to adapt to new material and new
experiences; this process is a lifelong one, not restricted by age and/or
reputation. An understanding of this
potential helped to render Maxwell Davies an accessible figure throughout his
sixty-year career, and offers encouragement to us all.